Independent Working Class Association - Electoral Performance

Electoral Performance

In the 2002 Oxford City Council elections the IWCA achieved the election of a local councillor, Stuart Craft, with more than 40% of the vote. Three more candidates received over 20% of the vote in the local elections in London, in Heaton ward in Havering, Clerkenwell ward in Islington and Haggerston ward in Hackney. They won 22% in Bunhill ward in London in a by-election in 2003.

The IWCA was able to raise the £20,000 required for participation in the 2004 London mayoral election and nominated Lorna Reid, a resident and advice worker on the Highbury council estate. Her campaign focused on opposing anti-social behaviour by funding youth facilities and cleaning up estates, establish community restorative justice schemes, local drugs detox centres and progressive local taxation. Reid came ninth with 9,542 (0.5%) of the first preference votes and 39,678 (2.1%) of the second preferences.

In the local elections that took place on the same day, the IWCA picked up two more seats on Oxford city council. At the 2006 local elections, they stood six candidates and gained a further seat from Labour, taking their total to four. However, they lost two of their Oxford council seats to Labour in May 2008. One of their councillors, Jane Lacey, stood down in 2010 to continue as a community campaigner, saying that she was disillusioned by the politics of the council.

Maurice Leen contested the seat of Oxford East for the IWCA in the 2005 UK general election, receiving 892 votes (2.1%).

In 2008, the Thurrock branch of the IWCA contested the working class Stanford East and Corringham Town ward and won 98 votes, down from 144 votes in 2007 and behind the BNP's 344 votes.